Kevin Sits the Throne of Finality, Trading Emotions for Rule-Level Immortality

She couldn't imagine that the glory of the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, the legend of the Shrek Seven Devils —all of it—could vanish into Nihility after one person's defeat.

"This is even more cruel than complete annihilation." Chang Gongwei, the former God of Light, spoke with utmost solemnity.

"Destruction has an end, but this cycle is an endless despair. Every struggle of a civilization, every rise of a hero, is merely a prelude to the next wipeout."

All the Deity present, all the powerful beings who had once stood at the pinnacle of the world, felt an unprecedented chill.

Their path to godhood, their millennia of cultivation, appear so fragile, so utterly vulnerable, before the Rules of "restarting the cycle of reincarnation."

Tang Wulin's golden eyes were fixed on the screen. He remembered everything he had done to fight against the Abyss Plane, and the brutality of the Dragon God War.

If such Rules existed in the Douluo World, would all their struggles be destined to be in vain?

"Wait, there's a chance!"

Ye Yinzhu's keen eyes caught the new information.

[Prometheus 17, brings with him MI's entrustment, stating that the new era's Herrscher can bear the Power of Finality.]

These words were like a ray of sunlight piercing through the clouds of despair, allowing everyone's tense nerves to relax slightly.

"MI... is she Kevin's lover?" Lie Yan asked softly. She and Ji Dong exchanged a glance, both seeing hope in each other's eyes.

"She left a contingency plan! She believed in the future!" Ji Dong said in a deep voice, his tone tinged with admiration.

"The Herrscher of the new era... Does this mean that we no longer need to carry out that cruel ' Holy Mark Plan '?" A light rekindled in Tian Hen's eyes.

"Placing our hopes in the future is the right path!" Hai Long said firmly. "Clinging to the despair of the past will only bring destruction!"

The crowd's mood improved slightly.

Yes, there is another path. A path that doesn't require sacrificing the vast majority of people, a path that believes in the future.

Kevin, the man who has carried the burden of loneliness for fifty thousand years, will he choose this path?

He should be relieved, right? He no longer has to play the role of that cold-blooded executioner alone.

However, the next sentence on the screen was like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing their newly ignited hope.

[But Kevin worries that the newcomers won't be able to afford the costs...]

"What?"

"He... he doesn't agree?"

"Why?! There's clearly a better way!"

Zhou Weiqing almost jumped up; his unruly personality made it impossible for him to understand this kind of "stubbornness."

"Why would you choose the dead end when there's a path of hope available? Is this person out of their mind?!"

He's not sick.

Tang San's voice rang out again, this time with a hint of complex and indescribable... weariness.

"He was... scared."

Fear?

Everyone was stunned.

That man, like a god or demon, that being who could Ice Seal the heavens and earth with a wave of his hand, that madman who dared to entrust the fate of an entire civilization to himself.

Will he be afraid?

"He's afraid the newcomers will fail." Huo Yuhao picked up the conversation, his Spiritual Eye seemingly piercing through the Light Screen, seeing the struggle deep within the man's heart.

"He feared that hope would be dashed again. He had already experienced the destruction of a civilization; he had seen his companions and lovers fall before his eyes. He didn't want anyone to suffer that pain again."

"Therefore, he preferred to choose a path he could control, even if it was incredibly cruel. Because the outcome of this path was certain, and he could bear it. But placing his hopes on newcomers meant the future was unknown, and if they failed, the price... might be heavier than he anticipated."

Tang Wulin fell silent.

He thought of himself. If there had been another path that would have spared him from fighting Gu Yuena, that path was fraught with uncertainty, while the other path meant sacrificing half of the Douluo Continent for a guaranteed victory... What would he have chosen?

He didn't know.

The weight of this problem suffocated him.

At that moment, the final, and most fatal, sentence appeared on the Light Screen.

[...deeply yearning for the appearance of a true Savior to end his Eternity suffering.]

Boom!

At that moment, everyone's brains seemed to be struck by a thunderbolt.

All the anger, confusion, and fear I felt before transformed into an indescribable and immense sorrow upon seeing this sentence.

"He... he didn't want to be Savior..."

Bei Bei's voice was hoarse. He looked at the screen as if he were seeing a soul that had been walking in boundless darkness for 50,000 years and was already exhausted.

He was... calling for help.

He Caitou opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word. His prized Soul Guidance Cannon seemed so insignificant in the face of that pain that spanned fifty thousand years.

"He wants... to die?" Xiao Xiao's face was pale; this seemingly simple word carried Qian Jun weight at this moment.

It's not death.

It is liberation.

It's the end.

"Fifty thousand years..." Niu Tian, the Titan Giant Ape, his voice hoarse, "A person, carrying hatred, loneliness, and despair, lived for fifty thousand years... My God..."

"He wasn't Savior, he was just a taxi driver who didn't die on the battlefield..." Tai Tan said somberly.

It turns out that beneath that cold mask, behind that world-destroying plan, there was neither cruelty nor arrogance.

It is endless suffering.

It was the final lament of a soul already crushed.

He wasn't trying to filter out humanity; he wanted a "true Savior" to filter out himself.

He doesn't want to destroy the world; he wants someone to end his Eternity hell.

That so-called "Holy Mark Plan" was perhaps, from the very beginning, his grandest and most desperate tomb, prepared for himself. He bound himself and the entire civilization together, forcing future generations to either surpass him or... let him and this failed world find peace.

"Monster..."

For the first time, the Dragon God's majestic voice carried a complex emotion.

"He lived his life as a monster who longed to be killed by a hero."

The God Realm Central was utterly silent.

Tang San's fist clenched silently inside his sleeve. He suddenly understood Kevin. He deeply empathized with the loneliness of carrying everything on one's shoulders, having no one to confide in, and having to walk alone. But what did what he carried amount to compared to Kevin's fifty thousand years of Eternity torment?

Huo Yuhao's eyes reddened slightly. He thought of Tian Meng, Ice Empress, Snow Empress... He had companions and lovers. But Kevin, he only had himself.

He is a solitary gravedigger, guarding a long-lost civilization and a promise that has long since grown cold, trudging alone across the wasteland of time.